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What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator
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Simon & Schuster
What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator
A ';remarkably candid and sensitive' (The Wall Street Journal) true crime memoir from Barbara Butcher, a trailblazing New York City death investigator, who reveals the untold stories behind more than 5,500 death scenes, including the nation's most horrific tragedy: the 9/11 attacks.
When Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism, she found an unexpected lifeline in a job at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in NYC. As only the second woman ever hired for the roleand the first to last more than three monthsshe became a vital force in the world of forensic science and criminal investigations.
Over the next two decades, Butcher worked thousands of cases: gruesome homicides, suspicious suicides, heartbreaking scenes involving underage victims, and complex mass casualty investigations. In her unforgettable account, she invites readers into the gritty, high-stakes world of crime-scene investigation, from the autopsy room and morgue to tense moments at active crime scenes. Along the way, she uncovered how confronting death every day gave her a new perspective on lifeand ultimately saved her from becoming a statistic herself.
In vivid, darkly humorous prose, Butcher recounts how she narrowly avoided a boobytrapped suicide scene, and how, during 9/11, she and her colleagues worked tirelessly to identify victims using scraps of clothing, DNA, and the memories of grieving loved ones. Her honesty, resilience, and sharp wit make this a standout in the genre of first responder memoirs and women in law enforcement.
';Breathtakingly honest, compassionate, and raw' (Patricia Cornwell) and ';completely unputdownable' (Adriana Trigiani), What the Dead Know is a powerful, insider's look at the world of death and the lessons it teaches us about how to live. Fans of forensic memoirs, cold case investigations, true crime, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and TV series like CSI or Mindhunter won't be able to put this down. Now featured in the five-part docuseries on Netflix, Homicide: New York
A “remarkably candid and sensitive” (The Wall Street Journal) memoir of more than twenty years of death-scene investigations by New York City death investigator Barbara Butcher.
Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous—and she loved it.
Butcher (yes, that’s her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in a cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation’s largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members’ descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.
This is the “breathtakingly honest, compassionate, and raw” (Patricia Cornwell), “completely unputdownable” (Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Left Undone) real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life—and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself. Fans of Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and true crime won’t be able to put this down.
When Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism, she found an unexpected lifeline in a job at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in NYC. As only the second woman ever hired for the roleand the first to last more than three monthsshe became a vital force in the world of forensic science and criminal investigations.
Over the next two decades, Butcher worked thousands of cases: gruesome homicides, suspicious suicides, heartbreaking scenes involving underage victims, and complex mass casualty investigations. In her unforgettable account, she invites readers into the gritty, high-stakes world of crime-scene investigation, from the autopsy room and morgue to tense moments at active crime scenes. Along the way, she uncovered how confronting death every day gave her a new perspective on lifeand ultimately saved her from becoming a statistic herself.
In vivid, darkly humorous prose, Butcher recounts how she narrowly avoided a boobytrapped suicide scene, and how, during 9/11, she and her colleagues worked tirelessly to identify victims using scraps of clothing, DNA, and the memories of grieving loved ones. Her honesty, resilience, and sharp wit make this a standout in the genre of first responder memoirs and women in law enforcement.
';Breathtakingly honest, compassionate, and raw' (Patricia Cornwell) and ';completely unputdownable' (Adriana Trigiani), What the Dead Know is a powerful, insider's look at the world of death and the lessons it teaches us about how to live. Fans of forensic memoirs, cold case investigations, true crime, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and TV series like CSI or Mindhunter won't be able to put this down. Now featured in the five-part docuseries on Netflix, Homicide: New York
A “remarkably candid and sensitive” (The Wall Street Journal) memoir of more than twenty years of death-scene investigations by New York City death investigator Barbara Butcher.
Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous—and she loved it.
Butcher (yes, that’s her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in a cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation’s largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members’ descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.
This is the “breathtakingly honest, compassionate, and raw” (Patricia Cornwell), “completely unputdownable” (Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Left Undone) real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life—and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself. Fans of Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and true crime won’t be able to put this down.
- | Author: Barbara Butcher
- | Publisher: Simon & Schuster
- | Publication Date: Jun 20, 2023
- | Number of Pages:
- | Language: eng
- | Binding: Hardback
- | ISBN-13: 9781982179380
- | ISBN-10: 1982179384
- Author:
- Barbara Butcher
- Publisher:
- Simon & Schuster
- Publication Date:
- Jun 20, 2023
- Language:
- eng
- Binding:
- Hardback
- ISBN-13:
- 9781982179380
- ISBN10:
- 1982179384